Today has been your typical American pastoral day, in some ways. It has been full. There were significant encounters with a few people, and passing meetings with more. There were two many minutes spent staring at a screen and communicating in a way that the Evangelists might have less-than-approved. Who knows?
Two moments stood out.
One was a conversation with the son of one of the finest priests of the diocese who has served all his priesthood here, and now lies in his home, cared for gently by hospice. He did not move or open his eyes while his son and I stood around him and spoke, but his spirit of caring love and pastoral intelligence filled the space. Big hearts do that, even when they are low.
The second was a visit to a parishioner. She is a wonderful lady in her mid-80’s who, as I told her today, is more active in these years though limited by age and illness than are many of us who are younger and more able to get around. She has just come home from a week in the hospital; a week by the way, in which she and her roommate became good friends and by the end of which the other woman was expressing a wish to join us at Saint Anselm’s. File that under true and natural evangelism/evangelization.
This morning I brought this dear lady communion at home. We heard Sunday’s Gospel, stopped to converse (!), prayed the Lord’s Prayer, and then she received Christ where he must feel very much at home. Then the most extraordinary and yet seamless thing happened.
My hostess told me that she belongs to the Order of Saint Luke the Physician and asked if I would mind if she prayed for me, laid hands on me, and anointed me? I replied that I would not mind at all. Her question grew from the fact of my ‘bum’ knee, currently awaiting the healing hand of one of Luke’s heirs in the trade.
With this, she opened her prayerbook and prayed. I leaned in and she laid hands on my head and prayed. I lifted my brow and she prayed and anointed me with a fragrant oil, apologizing then that she had applied too much. Instead, I would applaud her sacramental sense: let the sign speak!
All this from start to finish took maybe two minutes, two of the most moving minutes of 35 years of ordained ministry. I can put it this way, and then leave it there: I brought Jesus, as I am ordained to do. And lo, I found him already there, in prayer, and aching to heal.
Can I hear an Amen?
Believe it. 
AMEN !!!!
Just beautiful, John!
Amazing Grace!
Thank you Nayla.